Written by

and John Boyle

ASHEVILLE – With little more than two dozen people and a modest spread of sodas and deli plates, Allen Johnson’s career with Asheville City Schools came to an end in the hallway of the administrative office he oversaw for more than six years.

It was a low key send-off for the man who led so many high-profile initiatives for city schools.

In his tenure as the district’s superintendent, Johnson oversaw the system’s highest graduation rate to date, its lowest dropout rate in a decade and a project to build the district’s first new schools in nearly 30 years.

“He has been an exceptional leader,” said Jacquelyn Hallum, one of two board members present for the goodbye reception.

Three other board members couldn’t make it, and as a whole the Asheville Board of Education has been equally quiet about Johnson’s sudden departure.

Their silence about why Johnson would leave the district and retire, and why they decided to send him off with a $175,000 buyout has drawn a storm of criticism since.

A review of nearly 10,000 emails from Johnson and the city school board obtained through a public records request reveal how widely that discontent was shared — from City Council members to the Asheville City Schools Foundation.

But for anyone looking for answers, the emails offer only a few clues about the thinking of a politically appointed board with broad autonomy.

Conflicting accounts

The school board’s May 16 announcement that Johnson, 54, would retire with three years left on his contract came as a surprise to many — including former school board members and some members of the district’s administration.

That announcement was made in a statement issued by advising attorney Chris Campbell, who ended the statement by saying neither Johnson nor board members would comment further.

No emails regarding Johnson’s performance were included in those released to the Citizen-Times. Emails the school system withheld include those dealing with confidential personnel or student information and with attorney-client issues.

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Johnson also has faced no public criticism from past or present school board members.

“I think you’ve demonstrated under your tenure you can be a leader, you can be successful and at the same time to be honest and have integrity,” former board chairman Gene Bell told Johnson at the farewell reception.

“Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave and impossible to forget. That’s what I thought about when I thought about you,” Bell said.

Board vice chair Peggy Dalman was out of town during the event, and it was unclear why newly elected board members Leah Ferguson and Matt Buys were absent.

Former board vice chairman Al Whitesides, who left only two months before the announcement that Johnson would retire, called the decision “as much a surprise to me as it was to anybody else.”

Whitesides said there was no discussion of Johnson leaving during his two terms on the board.

Hallum, elected chairwoman in April, said in an email to the Citizen-Times that Johnson “was absolutely not fired nor asked to leave.”

Hallum said in a recent interview that Johnson approached the board to discuss a buyout, and the negotiations were “amicable and mutual.”

“In hindsight, it would have been better not to link those two words — ‘buyout’ and ‘retirement,’” Dalman said in a recent interview.

“As the board developed a clearer picture of the facts, we needed to consider what action was best,” Dalman said. “I feel that the board went through a very thorough and appropriate process, and we thought deeply about what to do.”

The contract

City school board members were under no obligation to pay Johnson anything as part of a buyout, according to his contract, which the Citizen-Times obtained through a public records request.

But the board would have been required to pay that amount had they forced him to leave. Johnson’s contract said he could be fired for cause, his contract terminated with a 90-day notice or his contract could be terminated by the board.

If the board ended the contract, it had to give him a 90-day notice and pay a severance equaling the remaining amount he would have earned or $175,000, whichever is less.

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Johnson made $135,124 a year. The $175,000 buyout will come from the local fund balance — or the difference between the organization’s assets and liabilities — from the Asheville City Schools local current expense fund.

With public pressure mounting to explain the buyout, emails between Campbell, the board’s consulting attorney, and city schools spokesman Charlie Glazener show that when Glazener relayed media requests for further information, Campbell instructed him not to comment.

“As stated in the release, no further comment will be made at this time,” Campbell said. “No need to refer them to me because I won’t have comment either.”

Board member Leah Ferguson sought to deal with the questions differently, offering a list of talking points to fellow board member Dalman that suggested Campbell “share that the buyout was separate from the retirement because those two have been conflated,” and that the board, “confirm that he would not have received the buyout provision had he been fired.”

Sex offense investigations

That exchange happened as the school board got its most stern criticism, which came from the Asheville City Schools Foundation.

Foundation executive committee President Steve Dykes, in a May 23 letter attached to one email, warned that conflicting statements from board members were fueling community distrust and that the buyout had become a problem.

“Our donors have questions about the financial needs of the district when such a payout has been awarded,” Dykes wrote in the letter. “This may harm our ability to raise support in the future. The faith that this community holds for this board is in jeopardy.”

Additional emails from Kate Pett, the foundation’s executive director, offered the one concern raised about Johnson’s tenure — that the school district might have mishandled cases of allegations of sexual abuse involving students.

In an email from Pett to board of education members, she shared her impressions of a meeting Buncombe District Attorney Ron Moore held at Ira B. Jones Elementary.

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Davonte Jackson, 25, a first-grade teaching assistant at Jones, had been charged in early April with two counts of taking indecent liberties with a child.

“Sadly, I felt that the tone of the meeting was inflammatory and accusatory,” Pett wrote. “It felt unfair that the district was not present to respond to the criticism. I think it’s fair that you know the tone and a summary of the content.”

Pett said Moore suggested the school system “was/has/is obstructing these investigations.”

He took a similar tone at a meeting concerning Aaron Paul Cook, a second-grade Vance Elementary school teacher charged with six counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of taking indecent liberties with a child.

Pett called Moore’s characterizations of the school system unfair but also said she hoped board members would “move quickly to restore credibility” and improve protocols.

“As you can imagine, parents left the meeting angry and confused and certainly less confident in the good judgment and transparency of our district,” Pett wrote. “I am sure there is room for improvement, and a public acknowledgment of the creation and implementation of new protocols seems like an essential step.”

Moore said Pett’s characterization of his statements at the meetings generally was accurate.

He spoke with Johnson a “couple of times, just about the ongoing investigations,” Moore said. He would not say whether Johnson personally mishandled the cases.

“For one, I don’t know that you can say one particular person did what at this juncture, and it serves no purpose to be talking about it, given these are pending cases,” Moore said.

City Council concern

No replies to the schools foundation letter explaining the circumstances of Johnson’s departure were included in the emails turned over to the Citizen-Times, which came also as board members faced growing concern from Asheville City Council members.

In a May 23 email response to fellow council members Gordon Smith and Marc Hunt, as well as the school board, Councilman Cecil Bothwell wrote:

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“Given the outcry from taxpayers, it would seem to me that a full accounting of the reasons for payment of severance is due the community. It is entirely obvious that the fact of the payment renders the ‘voluntary’ retirement stance absurd.”

Bothwell said in late August that he still has not heard a suitable explanation of the expenditure.

“I would continue to say we’re owed an explanation,” he said. “It does not seem to be a retirement.”

Smith said he was “confident the Board made a rational decision that’s best for our present and future students. It is not unusual for new Boards to transition into new superintendent leadership.”

The way things are

It is true that school superintendents are offered buyouts even when the decision to leave is mutual, said Allison Schafer, legal counsel and director of policy at the N.C. School Boards Association.

Separation clauses are standard in superintendent contracts, and buyouts are common, Schafer said.

The association represents all 116 school systems in North Carolina.

“Unilateral termination and retirement are not mutually exclusive,” she said.

“If they have a valid contract and the board wants to buy them out, they have the unilateral right to pay them the amount provided for in the contract. They bought his contract out, whatever they call it.”

Schafer would not characterize such a move as a “termination” and said school boards often handle superintendent departures this way.

“There is a right to say, ‘We want to end this contract — whatever you call it — and pay him this money,’” she said. “It is much more common for that to happen than boards to go through any dismissal proceedings, which would have to be for cause.”

Dismissals of superintendents are uncommon, and that’s partly why the buyout provision is standard, Schafer said.

Jack Hoke, executive director of the N.C. School Superintendents Association, said Johnson’s contract and the buyout provision is fairly typical. But he had no explanation for the buyout in a case where the superintendent was not terminated.

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“That would be something where the board of education would have to answer those questions, because they know their motivation and rationales,” Hoke said. “As far as a (possible) vote to give him $175,000, I’ve not been involved with any buyout like that in my experience, and I’ve been doing this for 39 years.”

A superintendent for 12 years, Hoke has been at the association the past two years. He worked in education for the state before that.

Not good enough

Regardless of whether buyouts like the one given Johnson are commonplace, the public is owned an explanation, said Hunt, the City Council’s liaison to the school board.

Hunt, in an email to his “Council colleagues,” called Johnson’s departure “an unusual arrangement to many.

“The fact that a severance payment is being provided here makes it clear to me that Mr. Johnson’s departure is an agreed-to arrangement with the Board,” Hunt wrote. “Board members emphasize to me that Mr. Johnson’s departure is a personnel matter and that disclosure of details of any discussion or rationale on their part is inappropriate.”

Hunt said in a recent interview he has not been able to glean any more information since his email.

“The main message I was giving them is the public was really confused at that time and remains confused, and they really need to work towards as much transparency as they can,” he said.

While some were critical of city government for not more closely overseeing the school board, Hunt said council’s ability to do so is limited.

Council appoints the board members, but Hunt said the city attorney’s office researched the city’s authority over the school board and found it limited.

The school board is chartered under a state act, so it essentially is “really a subset of state government, more than anything,” Hunt said.

“There is no policy oversight authority that comes with those appointments,” Hunt said. “Also, we don’t have the power to fire school board members, not that we have any interest in doing that.”

“I would love to have more transparency,” Hunt said. “I know people remain curious about it. I’m just not sure we’ll ever learn more about what happened.”